PITTSBURGH, ALLEGHENY CO., (WOLF) \u2014 Nearly three years after lighting up Beaver Stadium in his first start as Penn State’s quarterback, Allar delivered another memorable debut Thursday night \u2014 this time wearing black and gold.<\/p>\n
The former Nittany Lions quarterback completed 10 of 13 passes for 153 yards and two touchdowns in his first preseason appearance with the Pittsburgh Steelers, helping Pittsburgh defeat the Green Bay Packers 28-9 at Acrisure Stadium.<\/p>\n
Allar also ran for a touchdown, giving him three total scores in his professional debut. His performance earned him Steelers Digest Player of the Week honors.<\/p>\n
For Penn State fans, the performance may have looked familiar.<\/p>\n
Allar’s first appearance for the Nittany Lions came as a true freshman against Purdue on Sept. 1, 2022. Playing behind starter Sean Clifford, Allar entered to begin the second half and completed just two of four passes for 26 yards.<\/p>\n
He would appear in 10 games that season, finishing his freshman campaign with 344 passing yards, four touchdowns and no interceptions.<\/p>\n
But his first opportunity to take control of the Penn State offense came one year later.<\/p>\n
A breakout first start at Beaver Stadium<\/p>\n
On Sept. 2, 2023, Allar made his first collegiate start against West Virginia in front of more than 110,000 fans at Beaver Stadium.<\/p>\n
It didn’t take long for him to make an impact.<\/p>\n
On Penn State’s opening drive, Allar connected with KeAndre Lambert-Smith for a 72-yard touchdown.<\/p>\n
By the end of the night, Allar had completed 21 of 29 passes for 325 yards, three touchdowns and no interceptions as Penn State defeated West Virginia 38-15.<\/p>\n
The performance made Allar the first Penn State quarterback since Michael Robinson in 2003 to throw for at least 300 yards in his first career start.<\/p>\n
Three years later, his first night with the Steelers produced some striking similarities.<\/p>\n
Another efficient debut<\/p>\n
Against Green Bay, Allar completed 76.9% of his passes, compared with 72.4% in his first Penn State start.<\/p>\n
His 153 passing yards were well below the 325 he accumulated against West Virginia, but Allar needed only 13 attempts to get there.<\/p>\n
That works out to approximately 11.8 yards per attempt against the Packers, compared with 11.2 yards per attempt in his first Penn State start.<\/p>\n
And once again, he protected the football.<\/p>\n
Allar threw no interceptions in his first Penn State appearance, no interceptions in his first Penn State start and no interceptions in his first Steelers preseason appearance.<\/p>\n
The touchdowns followed a similar pattern.<\/p>\n
Allar accounted for three touchdowns in his first Penn State start, all through the air. Thursday night, he accounted for three more \u2014 two passing and one rushing.<\/p>\n
| First start\/debut | Comp.-Att. | Yards | Pass TD | INT |<\/p>\n
| Penn State vs. West Virginia, 2023 | 21-29 | 325 | 3 | 0 |<\/p>\n
| Steelers vs. Green Bay, 2026 | 10-13 | 153 | 2 | 0 |<\/p>\n
There is, of course, a major difference between the two performances.<\/p>\n
The West Virginia game represented Allar taking over as Penn State’s starting quarterback in a regular-season game. Thursday’s performance came against a preseason defense with Allar entering after Mason Rudolph and Will Howard.<\/p>\n
Still, the early results were encouraging.<\/p>\n
Pittsburgh’s three quarterbacks combined to complete 27 of 33 passes for 332 yards, two touchdowns and no interceptions, but Allar finished as the most productive passer of the group, according to the Steelers.<\/p>\n
His first Penn State start ultimately launched a multi-year run leading the Nittany Lions.<\/p>\n
What his first performance in Pittsburgh means for his NFL future remains to be seen, but for a quarterback who once announced his arrival in Happy Valley with three touchdowns and no interceptions, his first night in a Steelers uniform carried a familiar feel.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PITTSBURGH, ALLEGHENY CO., (WOLF) \u2014 Nearly three years after lighting up Beaver Stadium in his first start as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":265838,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[73,75,74],"class_list":["post-265837","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265837","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=265837"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265837\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/265838"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=265837"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=265837"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=265837"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}